


Trials and Tribulations

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:45:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney fumbles against the wide, plastic grip of the bottle he's trying to maneuver. It's blue and has a seam bigger and more noticeable than any pair of stockings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trials and Tribulations

The room is unfinished, cracked concrete walls, the pervasive mustiness of old rust and older mildew, highlighted with a single, bare light bulb. It's tiny, just big enough for two of the waist-high machines that lurk there and a single person to operate them. It's Rodney's least favorite place to be, certain he's going to have an asthma attack or get swallowed up by gaping metal mouths, leading towards a benighted space of utter darkness.

When John leans against the door jamb, arms crossed and silently staring, Rodney's first almost overwhelming instinct is to close his eyes and start the mantra of _wide open spaces, cool, fresh breeze, wide open spaces, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. Wide open god damned spaces._

"Is there something wrong with your spine?" he snaps instead. This is a ridiculous time for him to have a claustrophobia attack, but the room is _minuscule_ , barely four by four, with no windows and a low ceiling. He's never really thought of John as a big man before, but with him filling up almost the entire door-way, light making crazy, foreboding patterns on a face no one else would recognize as angry, Rodney can't really help it. "I have no idea how you ever passed basic training, let alone officer's school. Don't they attach bolts so you're permanently at attention somewhere?"

"That was Lorne. Me, I learned how to pretend."

Rodney fumbles against the wide, plastic grip of the bottle he's trying to maneuver. It's blue and has a seam bigger and more noticeable than any pair of stockings. Rodney pushes his thumb against it, enjoying the tight almost-pain as it digs into his skin. 

"Please stop staring." It's humiliating that it's taken less that two minutes for him to break down, but he can't help it. John is laid-back and blank-faced to everyone but his chosen trusted few; Rodney'd been working so hard to _be_ one of those trusted few that he'd completely glossed over the fact that there had to be downsides to getting to know the real John Sheppard. 

Downsides like now Rodney can actually interpret most of John's expressions or tells, and that is almost never a good thing.

He lifts the bottle, opening it to let out a sharp, clean smell that immediately wants to make him sneeze. "I hate this stuff," he says, for approximately the four-hundredth time.

"Rodney. Pour it in already." It's the only substance that really works, and for all that it makes him sneeze, there's never any _later_ affects, which is all John cares about.

"I don't see why this is necessary!" he protests. He's too nervous to access his usual reserve of anger, too upset at having to be in this position at all to be frustrated by it. He just wants it to end so he can curl up into a humiliated ball and die for a while.

"Rodney. Next bottle. Measure it and pour _carefully."_

Rolling his shoulders to try and loosen them, Rodney refuses to let himself sweat. He's built bombs before. He's typed and rewired and defused his way through countless events that could have killed him, his coworkers, and his growing number of friends. Never before has he been this nervous.

John really has the face for foreboding, he thinks inanely, glancing over his shoulder. The bare, harsh light brings out all the lines in his face, deepening the shadows to something distant and frightening.

"Rodney. _Pour."_

He does, carefully making sure the clear, thick liquid full of iridescent bubbles lines up exactly, before pouring it as steadily as he possibly can into the appropriate receptacle.

Rodney is in no way prepared for the lid to be slammed shut so hard the whole machine rattles. He shrieks and jumps and tries not to jump onto the body that is suddenly much, much closer to him -- and no longer quite so angry-looking.

"Oh, shut up," Rodney says mulishly.

"But look, Rodney, your very first load of laundry that _won't_ dye the whites pink!" John is hamming it up, as smarmy as a businessman faced with strippers, and the bastard doesn't even flinch when Rodney punches his shoulder. Hard.

"I hate you so, so much. You are unspeakably evil."

John just kisses his cheek, bristly and wet and so sweet that Rodney almost has to be sarcastic, just to protect himself -- but John's also got an arm over his shoulder and is slowly leading him back towards the rest of the house. "Yeah, I really am. Now, I promised you a reward for learning how to not screw up my clothes, right?"

'Reward' has potential, but Rodney's become familiar with John's insane definitions of that word. Warily checking how tight John's grip is, he says, "Yes?"

Being thrown down on the sofa is completely unexpected; Rodney actually struggles, fighting back with his paltry but hard-won skills before he realizes that John is just trying to sit next to him _without_ getting a black eye, and dig up the remote at the same time. "I Netflixed a bunch of those NOVA episode you like," John says, grinning star-bright and cheeky as he chases a skittering remote over the varnished end table it only rarely lives on, no matter how many rules they make about that.

Rodney tries not to sink into the sofa, but it's hard. It's _very_ comfortable, hand-picked after an exhaustive search to cater to his back problems and John's almost pathological love of furniture that attempts to swallow him whole. "But you hate NOVA stuff."

John aims the remote, dyed in blue and flickering white as red FBI warning glares at them from across the room. "No, I don't," he says comfortably. "Besides, I'd _marathon_ them if it means I never have to wear pink boxers on base ever again."

Rodney goes a little pink himself. Oh, god, it was on _base?_ He should be grateful all he's been forced to do is relearn how to wash his own clothes under John's flat, angry gaze. Running laps is John's current favorite way of punishing Rodney, and he's become _frightening_ proficient at guilting Rodney into actually going.

But then he does things like fill his Netflix queue with things he tolerates only because of Rodney, and never once objects when Rodney commandeers his shoulder for a pillow, and really, Rodney's pretty sure as trade-offs go, he's miles and miles ahead.

"You know, it wasn't so much that my boxers were pink," John says as the actual credits start rolling. His arm tightens into what might, if looked at sideways, be called a one-arm-hug. "It's that everybody guessed _why_ they were pink."

"Why the hell do you have white boxers anyway? Isn't that just asking for trouble?"

John coughs and nudges Rodney with his shoulder. "Hey, weren't we watching something?" he says hastily, and Rodney is suddenly so grateful that they've both become overnight experts at ignoring when the other wears that particular blinding, humiliating smile.

Especially when both of them use it at the same time.


End file.
